Ghost Tales

    With leaves twitching
    the autumn air
    and the burnt almond
    breath of landscape
    heaving relief,
    the afternoon heavy-footedly
    walks across
    evening's threshold.

    II
    A garment is held high
    as adrenalin in the marble
    glow of wintery air.
    Mud puddles reflect the faery shrimp
    of clouds while cone-shaped
    coniferous trees perch on lawns like
    starlings.

    III
    High above to skating and
    sugar-icing rinks in misty hues,
    a ginger-bread man
    manoeuvres past the ghost tails of a dead
    luna moth.

Paul Cameron Brown

Paul Cameron Brown is a Canadian poet known for his extensive work in both poetry and art criticism. Born in western Canada, Brown has had a prolific career in writing, often intertwining themes of human experience and nature. His works have been showcased in various literary magazines and anthologies. With a style that is both reflective and evocative, he has gained recognition not only in Canada but also internationally.

Paul Cameron Brown

The Crowkeeper

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Regalia

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

A Thief's Notebook

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

Passing

Paul Cameron Brown, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Candlelight In Black

    The ghosts are marmalade
    thin as rinds across toast
    or the Weeping Willow, whose
    green beard leans,
    crane-like, into a child's
    backyard.

    A Morning Cloak butterfly,
    maroon wet with the paint
    of morning, cat paws
    thin filament leaves
    astride a larder
    of memories.

    Dalliance with the past,
    smoke grey these architects
    of memory
    the privet hedge,
    lone pine tree,
    jet black caterpillar
    poised about a green
    carrot top trigger
    laced in emperor's gold
    like fathoms of the sea
    held ... in quiet repose.

Paul Cameron Brown

Penny Wise, Pound Poor

    Fall was a tubercular cousin
    residing in the country
    sparse hair,
    rasping cough.

    2
    Night air was damaging
    stringing pumpkins
    around orange chains, the
    milkweed pod shivering
    in open shirtsleeves
    little noises sifting
    from burrows in her chest.

    3
    Fall was...
    reputedly from another country
    wore glaring cravats,
    gold leaf and Rubenesque chain;
    stalked the lark
    mocked the breeze.

    4
    Penny wise, pound poor
    leaves
    a shock of hair
    prematurely white
    degradingly picked from
    the comb
    flung out fireflies
    crisp bodies to singe
    fire-cold light.

    5
    Advancing sta...

Paul Cameron Brown

The Clearing That Is The Trees

    "They know they are going to the filth of numbers and laws,
    to the games anyone can play, and the work without fruit."
    Lorca

    I want to go walking in troubled marshes
    where cold gray coves leave off the mind
    and the scent of rushes twist the wind
    as fall covers dungeons of angry sparrows.

    I want to go quickly to troubled marshes,
    hear the squeak of brackish waters
    over crocks of sponge bubbles crabbing
    their surface.

    I desire stands of dead brush
    to wave in grave solemnity,
    whimpering little houses
    off forest glades to flicker
    out lamps with
    large dogs poised on verandahs
    like stone gargoyles.

    I want to handle anguish as if
    it were an interesti...

Paul Cameron Brown

Tickings Of A Clock

    I began to see old lanterns, books
    opening/folding within your eyes;
    a pale light running as silver
    to the sea.

    Then crestfallen leaves dangling
    as from fishhooks or the autumn moon's
    skeletal lightness tossing a path
    between waves over this sidewalk, that,
    with the back streets passing occasional
    hisses at the main culprit, night.

    The prim measurement of your smile,
    not the wan neglect of cool skin tones
    or fabric always more suggestive
    of summer colours, sideway movement
    of shadow into tickings of a clock.

    Rather mist and clamminess,
    lipstick in a smear as a
    thumbprint before the
    coughing of a motorcar
    as its elliptical wedge
    tears darkne...

Paul Cameron Brown

Presence Of Mind

    Spring heralds the summer with lilacs perched from that door.

    In snows, a swarm of bushes lie black and apparently rootless as the town's iron-gate bridge collapses under the centre part of the main road.

    Little enclaves of activity pass as stores, mere centrefolds across busy highway arteries this time of year.

    I am a grey fleck in my dark wool coat near the perimeter of a winding fence.

    The casual observer gives me half a chance to be seen in the deathless white, opaque coloured moonstone so still against the field's shores.

    A plaster river, her sides inserted with isle-dotted chunks, hands across a winter solstice tribal dance.

    Ostensibly, I poke the land from stylized limbo, a chalky substance disturbed with every movement's cough.

Paul Cameron Brown

Marzipan

    1
    A thick hole in the dark
    from which
    stars pour silver
    as in pails
    their runny divide
    ink-strewn scalps
    torn from the roof of the sky.

    2
    Padded footprints
    giant ferns blooming
    constellation prints,
    the wind an athlete
    pacing about a track
    drying thru fingerprints
    thin, nectarine light.

    3
    Sand down whitest skin
    moving past your hand
    a gown, mauve to green,
    iceberg lettuce,
    the black festering
    across a ribcage;
    while night arranges
    moths to dusting powder
    pucker-lipped
    fronds from afar

    4
    Afar, the word a gypsy
    tangled in the waves,
    foam from a medicine ...

Paul Cameron Brown